Reed Hastings

Chairman, president and chief executive officer, Netflix Inc.

Reed Hastings founded Netflix in 1997 and launched the subscription service in 1999. Netflix grew to one million subscribers in less than four years, and surpassed 6.3 million subscribers in December 2006.

In five consecutive surveys over three years Netflix has been independently ranked number one in customer satisfaction across all of ecommerce by ForeSee Results. In the fall of 2005, Netflix was the winner of Fast Company's national Customers First Award, with Reed appearing on the cover of the October issue.

Also in 2005, Time magazine added Reed to its "Time 100" list of the one hundred most influential global citizens. Newsweek wrote that "Netflix revolutionized the way we watch movies."

In March 2007 Reed was appointed to Microsoft Corp.'s board of directors.

Earlier in his career, Reed founded Pure Software, which he built into one of the world's 50 largest public software companies. After a successful public offering and a number of acquisitions, Pure was acquired by Rational Software in 1997.

Reed is an active educational philanthropist and board member of many non-profits. In addition, he was President of the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. He has led successful statewide political campaigns for more charter public schools and easier passage of local school bonds.

Reed received a BA from Bowdoin College in 1983 and an MSCS degree from Stanford University in 1988. He holds several patents. Between Bowdoin and Stanford, Reed served in the U.S. Peace Corps as a high school math teacher in Swaziland.

Netflix said CEO Reed Hastings would get a 50% raise in 2014, following a year in which the streaming-video company's shares were a top Wall Street performer and its TV programming won critical acclaim.

The informality of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings' latest Facebook post is very much in line with the tenor and style of social media communications. It's a lot less in line with traditional company announcements about performance. That's the point.

Netflix shareholders voted against a nonbinding resolution to split up the company's chief executive and chairman positions, a move some investors and proxy-advisory firms have pushed at U.S. companies.

Netflix's "House of Cards" scored four Emmy nominations today. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took the opportunity the drop the mic on Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes, who had some choice words for Netflix way back in 2010.